So, yeah, I went to Jazzercise last night, and pretty much had my ass handed to me on a platter. Almost literally, after the leg lifts. (Ow...) And one of the routines was so complicated that I never did master it and wound up just marching back and forth instead of even trying to figure out what everyone was doing.

But the instructors were enthusiastic and the music was good and while I'm not entirely sure I'd want to call it fun, it was the sort of workout that I should probably have more of. And I appreciated that the instructors were not stick women, too.

So I think I'll sign up for a month or two and see how I like it after that. If nothing else, it would be good to be in somewhat better shape by the time I go to Cancun so I don't collapse entirely from the walking around touristy things.

After I'd gotten home and we'd had dinner, Matt decided to go to the weekly gathering of random people at the Corner Pocket, so we swapped Penny duty.

Matt gave her a hug and a kiss and told her he was going out and he'd see her in the morning. She was not too happy about this plan, and threw herself (carefully) on the floor to pretend to cry and try to squeeze out some actual tears.

As soon as she heard the door close, she bounced up onto her feet. "Come back!" she demanded at the door. "You come back right now!"

She went to the window, oblivious to my muffled hysteria on the couch, and shook her finger at Matt, who was getting into his car. "Come back right now, Daddy! Right now!" She kept it up for a while, but when he didn't, she cheerfully climbed up onto the couch to watch home movies on my computer.

Speaking of Penny anecdotes, I meant to talk about this one yesterday, but forgot:

When I went to get Penny out of bed yesterday morning, she rolled onto her knees and sat up and looked at me. "What Penny widing?" she asked.

I had no idea what "widing" meant. I took a stab in the dark. "What are you writing?"

"No, Mommy! What Penny widing?"

Yeah, I'm sure you've figured it out, but give me a break; it was early in the morning. I just gave up. "I don't know, sweetie, what?" And hoped I'd eventually pick it up from context.

"Penny widing a dolphin!"

Oh, riding. Okay, sure.

And then it sort of hit me: I think she's talking about a dream.

I know she dreams, because what else would wake her up in the middle of the night and make her whimper for Mommy and Daddy? But we've never been able to get her to tell us what she dreamed about. Maybe she's like me -- 99% of the time, my dreams are completely gone within 5 seconds of opening my eyes.

So this riding a dolphin thing is a first for us.

Kinda neat.

And one more.

Obviously, kids grow. But it's always kind of surprising to see how fast it happens. It's especially noticeable with Penny and Jess, because we only see them about every six weeks or so, and the two girls are so close to the same age that they're growing at about the same rate -- but in uneven spurts.

So every time we go to see them, it's kind of fun to watch until both of them are standing upright at the same time and see who's taller this month, and how much. For most of this year, they've been close to the same height, or Jess has had a bit of a lead on Penny.

But when they dropped in last weekend, Penny had at least half an inch on Jess. Maybe more. (It was hard to tell exactly; there were shoe differences and of course two two-and-a-half year old kids are not going to stand still at the same time for more than a couple of nanoseconds.)

And I'm with Penny every day, so it takes something surprising like that to make me realize how much she's grown, but since then, I keep seeing it all over the house. Like...

This was when she was one year old, and here she's nearly two... She walked by the window last night and not only can she see out without any effort at all now, but her shoulders are several inches higher than the sill. She's grown at least 4 or 5 inches in the last year. I can barely remember her stretching up on her tiptoes to see out the window, and it seems incredible to me that she was ever so tiny.

Or the fact that I realized that it is no longer safe to put things on top of the entertainment center. She has to stretch up on her tiptoes, but if I put something down in front of the DVD player, she can get it.

Or she was playing with Ray-Ray Sunday evening, and the top of his head is just about even with her mouth. (He's 9 months younger than Penny, so it'll be a few years before he catches up. If ever; his parents are not especially tall, and Penny is obviously following the Brooks tradition.) But wasn't his head even with her eyes just a couple of weeks ago?

Maybe that's what this round of midnight wakeups is about. All that stretching can't be comfortable.

--Liz